Filtering The Mind to Purify The Heart

Good morning friends!

We wake up this morning to some snow...and it is expected to keep snowing until we see a possible accumulation of 12 inches!!  Oh boy.  Mother Nature's last hurrah...I just only pray that my pretty wild flowers don't succumb to the cold...they are spreading so beautifully in my flower garden....and the array of color and texture and different sizes is just so pleasing to the eye.  I had even gotten out there and dug a 6" trench along my flower garden where I am placing some flat slate stone in a mosaic pattern along the entire length of it.  The idea at first was to build a 2-tiered wall, but I love how it looks remaining flush with the ground.  I will share a little story about those wild flowers for those who visit and haven't read posts from last spring.  You see, I had suffered a bit of financial hardship that didn't allow me to purchase the usual annual flowers I like to plant in my garden each year.  I usually will buy one or two perennials and then some annuals for the beautiful colors and to add depth.  My flower garden has become a place of solace for me.  I love digging in the dirt, turning the soil, and lovingly preparing my flowers' summer home.  I usually go ALL COLORFUL, try to get a little bit of every color I can find, but try to plant them in a manner where they play off of each other and create a bountiful bouquet of fullness, vibrancy, and beauty.  I have never viewed my interest in gardening as a hobby, nor mowing the lawn or weed trimming as a chore...but more to me...they are a labor of love.  Part of me "needs" to do it.  I often think, during the summer, after my garden is tended to, and my lawn is freshly mowed and the lilac trees are in bloom that people on my block must think me "strange"..as I will (on a daily basis) go outside, look at my garden, walk out to the sidewalk and look at my yard, and often times, I will take pictures.  I deeply appreciate nature's beauty and take pride in nurturing it along a bit and LOVE to look at what nature and I have created "together."  It makes me feel a part of it all.  This is very important to me.  So, last year, because of my temporary financial crisis, I was very saddened about not having the money to spend on my flowers.  If I try hard enough, I can actually conjure up those feelings...and if I had to describe them, the word that comes to mind is emptiness.  I thought, what am I going to do with myself if I cannot create this garden?

Taking you a step further back, I had admired in my next-door neighbor's yard every spring a bunch of "forget-me-nots" that spread further and further along the side of her home and had said.."I love those little blue flowers, I WANT some of those!"  They started off as one little bunch and spread to encompass the entire side of her home, and they were so intricate and beautiful, and yet, the blanket of them contrasted so beautifully with the green of the grass.  Well, one sunny spring day, I ventured out to my garden to take a look around and I could not believe my eyes.  There they were....these "forget-me-nots" sprouting up on both sides of the main entry of my home, along the crack of the first step of the stairs, and believe it or not, they were flanking each stair up to my entry (growing right out of the corners of the cement stairs).  My eyes then followed the cascade of them around the bottom stair into my garden where there I saw multiple bunches of these "pansy-appearing" wild flowers scattered throughout my garden.  There were solid white ones, variegated purple and yellow, lavender and white, solid deep purple, yellow and white, and blue and white.  They were each in a bunch approximately 4 inches in diameter everywhere throughout my garden.  I had never planted them and had never experienced them growing there before, but there they were!!

Being the person that I am, I immediately thanked God for this special gift.  I didn't touch these flowers, but turned the soil AROUND them and they all filled in nicely and bloomed the entire summer...and get this...THEY NEVER DIED during the winter neither.  They bloomed straight through the year.  I had taken pictures of them in December, January, and February---snow covered--and when the snow melted, there they were--just as colorful and beautiful as ever.  

The lesson I have learned from this (and many other experiences) is this:  GOD WILL GIVE YOU the desires of your HEART---not the desires of your mind or your body...but ONLY your heart.  When you endeavor to "contribute" to the beauty of HIS creation in any form, this power will be there right along side of you.  When the drive inside of you to take on a task seems to somehow be innately attached to something bigger than you inside of you, it WILL manifest.  This is the way of the most-high power and when we approach anything with love in our hearts and a way in which we can outwardly and creatively express that love...we become the "Ways and Means Committee" to that purpose.  

Our ego makes us ugly.  Want, want, want.  It drives us to always look for things outside to make us look better, feel better, live better.  It travels through time, finding fault with the past, complaining about now, and attempting to control our future.  It sees the beauty in things as just a means to an end in satisfying its constant, never-quenched craving for MORE.  It overlooks, under-values, and replaces everything--all the time.  It becomes addicted to physical manifestation of "presumed happiness."  Though sadly, none of it is real.  There is no permanent sense of well-being within the ego.  It is not structured that way.  It is structured to dwell on loss...and so....that is what the universe feeds it.  The universe knows nothing of loss or gain...fullness or emptiness...it just knows to GIVE.  What are you searching for?  

I have found that an attitude of gratitude...knowing what you have and being appreciative of it brings more prosperity with it.  What you speak and act into your life is what the universe gives you more of.  When ANYTHING is approached with a mindset of contribution, collaboration, and purity of intent, you will see and experience the immense power that is available to you.  

I want to share a quote that I recently read-- "I don't want you to save me, I want you to stand beside me while I save myself."  This quote has encrypted in it two messages...personal responsibility and contribution.  This asks NOTHING of the other but what the other is "willing to contribute" to the deeper desire that one has for oneself.  If you read the book of Job in the Bible...this quote could be used as a summary of the lesson outlined in that story.  God says to Job.."Then I will also confess unto thee that thine OWN right hand can save thee."

So maybe it is time for us all to do a little mind-filtering.  Get all that junk out of that water that clogs up the pipes that run between the heart and mind.  We weed our gardens, we mow our overgrown lawns, we shovel the snow from our entries and exists, we clean our car windows off to remove anything that may obstruct our vision.  We prune, trim, clean, declutter, scrub, polish all these THINGS...and I think we forget the "as it is in Heaven" part of our lives.  What about that part?  On earth as it is in heaven.  Instead of attempting to change ourselves to better fit in to the outside...how bout we concentrate on the INSIDE and manage those things around us to better fit that?  I guess I've always taken this perspective and lived by this ideology, even though there have been times where the ego has reared its ugly head in times of weakness (and we all have those times, don't we?)  Somehow, I always find myself back where I belong though.  Back on the right track.  

Sometimes I feel like all I do is clamor about here on this blog, in my book, and in conversation with people about the evidenced proof of the things I clamor about!  lol.  But there is truth in it, undeniable truth.  I am proof of it, I live it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  I do it for the same reasons I cherish those wildflowers in my flower bed.  It is meant to be this way...that is all.  I have a voice and I use it in many different creative ways.  I write with my voice, I work with my voice, I plant with my voice, I paint with my voice, I build with my voice, I dance with it, sing with it, walk with it and make a contribution with it.  This is all I need..and I am grateful to have so many ways to open to me to express it.  

Ram Dass explains the differences between faith and belief...though a lot of us use these two terms as if they are interchangeable.  He says that Belief is of the mind.  Faith is of the heart.  He also says that the past and the future are nothing but thoughts...that NOW is the only experience of God.  I've come to believe this wholeheartedly.  


"We're all just walking each other home."~Ram Dass.  


Namaste (I bow to you--the soul in me acknowledges and respects the soul in you.  I recognize your divine spark.)

Much love.